Buzzr (TV Network)
Buzzr TV (or Buzzr) is an American digital multicast television network owned by FremantleMedia. The network features classic game shows. The network launched on June 1, 2015. The network will be using FremantleMedia's library of game shows to program the network. Debmar-Mercury (Fremantle's distribution partner for the current run of Family Feud) is handling affiliate recruitment. History On January 20, 2015, FremantleMedia announced that it would launch Buzzr TV, a digital multicast network that will serve as an extension of the brand; the network, which announced Fox Television Stations as its charter station group, would feature a lineup of classic game shows from the company's programming library. Thom Beers, CEO of FremantleMedia North America, stated his interest in launching a network centered around its game show content after he joined the company in 2012, calling such a project a "top priority" for Fremantle as a way to help monetize the value of its library. The company intended to focus Buzzr toward older adults, with Beers citing that the "old-format game shows are really, really hard the younger viewership that the Buzzr YouTube channel targets to watch." The Buzzr television network launched on June 1, 2015. Lawsuit On February 23, 2016, a New York-based web development firm called Codename Enterprises, sued FremantleMedia over trademark infringement, dilution and unfair competition as it has done business also under the name of "Buzzr" since 2009. The suit argued that Fremantle's use of the brand on its YouTube channel had associated it with objectionable content and alleged that Fremantle had displaced its own YouTube channel URL to point towards it. (see the "Links" page for details) Programming The channel made its debut on Fox owned TV Stations on June 1, 2015. As promised, the network is filled with FremantleMedia's library of game shows, spanning 154 series in an estimated 40,000 extant episodes in total. The network's initial lineup (with series produced from the 1950s to 2000) is expected to include To Tell the Truth, Password, Family Feud (encompassing episodes beginning with Richard Dawson as host and dating up to John O'Hurley's tenure), Let's Make a Deal (from Monty Hall's hosting runs), the Match Game, Beat the Clock, What's My Line?, Press Your Luck, Blockbusters and Card Sharks. Extra Two Hours FremantleMedia and Buzzr provides two hours of "bonus" content weekly to affiliates to air on another subchannel in their frequency. Those two shows in particular include the short-lived 1986-87 syndicated version of Card Sharks hosted by the late Bill Rafferty and the syndicated 1999-02 version of Family Feud hosted by Louie Anderson. KGNG Las Vegas airs those two games on their independent subchannel branded Movies Plus, channel 47.5 (BUZZR's on 47.2). KCDO-TV Sterling/Denver took it one (big) step up. The independent station branded K3 airs those games on their primary channel, 3.1 on Saturdays at 4:00 PM local time. It's the only footprint the network has on the satellite pay-tv outlets as K3 is carried on all cable/satellite/telco system in the Denver market. In the surrounding areas in Denver having access to the network on KCDO's OTA channel 3.3 can watch two hours of BUZZR. Nosey In 2017, a new channel on Roku (or similar) devices called Nosey has on-demand access of full episode of FremantleMedia owned classic game shows including: Family Feud (Dawson & Anderson), Match Game (Rayburn), Press Your Luck, To Tell the Truth (Collyer) & Card Sharks (Eubanks) Amazon Prime Video In 2017, the network announced that it has teamed up with Amazon Prime Video to give on-demand access to many of the most popular classic game shows including: Beat the Clock (Hall), Blockbusters (Cullen), Body Language, Card Sharks (Perry & Eubanks), Child's Play, Double Dare, Family Feud (Dawson, Combs & Anderson), Match Game (Rayburn), Password Plus, Press Your Luck, Super Password, Tattletales, I've Got a Secret (Moore) & What's My Line? (Daly) Celebrating 75 Years of the TV Game Show (2016) In conjunction with its anniversary of the genre, the network plans to create a story arc celebrating the genre's 75th year by adding new episodes of favorable classic game shows along with additional promotions and special marathon blocks all year long. Why I Love Game Shows In 2016, the network invited its viewers to upload a photo, video or send a message telling them about your love of game shows where you might even have an opportunity to be featured on BUZZR or on their official Facebook Page. Expansion in Canada On September 12, 2016, the network expanded in Canada as an midnight hour block called "BUZZR After Hours" exclusively on the Canadian television channel YES TV. It was a three-hour weekly programming block that airs every Monday thru Friday from 1:00 until 4:00 AM featuring classic black & white and color vintage game shows from FremantleMedia's library including: To Tell the Truth, What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, Card Sharks, Sale of the Century, Beat the Clock (1979 Version) and Double Dare. (See the "Link" below this article for details.) Buzzr Casino (App) In October 2016, the network has teamed up with fellow Canadian video game company called Ludia as they released an iOs/Android app called Buzzr Casino named after the network's former primetime block, the app offers free slot machines games along with the opportunity to network with other players as well as exciting casino games. The players can try their luck at Buzzr's slot machine and unlock new slot games with every level they crack. The classic library of shows that were seen on the app includes: Family Feud, Card Sharks, Press Your Luck, Let's Make a Deal and more. Game Day 10 Sweepstakes On January 10, 2017, the network did their "Game Day 10 Sweepstakes" where on the 10th of every month, you can watch the network for the "Buzzr Word of the Day", then you'll enter that word at Buzzplay.com or on their Facebook page for your chance to win cool prizes. Promotional Stunts The network also puts on promotional stunts surrounding holidays and other events. For example, the channel announced that on July 4, 2015 they would be airing episodes of Body Language, Match Game, Press Your Luck, Card Sharks, Super Password and Password Plus where they originally aired on the 4th of July in their respective years. Then Beginning on September 7-12, 2015, the channel began airing a special week called "Lost and Found" where it featured never-before-seen unaired pilots and different-formatted, short-lived game shows from Fremantle's library including: Play for Keeps!, Star Words, TKO, On a Roll, Body Talk, the 1992 pilot of The Family Feud Challenge, Beat the Clock (1979), Now You See It (Narz), Double Dare, Body Language, Child's Play, the 1962 pilot of The Match Game, the 1973 pilot of Match Game and the 1963 pilot of Let's Make a Deal. Additional Notes: *The original 1963 pilot of Let's Make a Deal was the first game show to be aired on Buzzr in 2015. Prior to this, The 1963 pilot of Let's Make a Deal was also aired during their "Let's Make a Deal-a-thon" in 2001 while the 1962 pilot of The Match Game and the 1973 pilot of Match Game have aired on "Match Game's Merry Blank-a-thon" in 2012 on Game Show Network/GSN respectively in occasional marathons. *Although a small clip of the pilot of Take Your Choice was seen in the promo, it never aired as part of the block during the week. The event returned again on September 11-15, 2017. This time it features shows such as Make the Connection, Choose Up Sides, Wordplay, Trivia Trap, Missing Links, Winner Take All, It's News to Me and Play Your Hunch. It also features pilots that have already been seen in the first Lost & Found event including the original 1962 pilot of The Match Game, Play for Keeps!, Body Talk and Star Words. the original 1956 pilot of To Tell the Truth as Nothing But the Truth was also aired along with a first and only non-game show episode of the short-lived syndicated reality/talk show Richard Simmons' Dream Maker. Additional Note: *The original 1956 pilot of Nothing But the Truth also aired in their To Tell the Truth Marathon on June 12, 2016. On October 5, 2015, Buzzr announced their new promotion for their Sunday Night lineup block called "Pick & Play" Where it allowed viewer votes from a list of six classic game shows from FremantleMedia's library, which includes: Beat the Clock (1979), Double Dare, Now You See It (Narz), Sale of the Century (Perry), Trivia Trap and Wordplay. After the sweepstakes ends on October 12, 2015, the top three most-voted shows will officially make up Buzzr's new Sunday Night lineup on October 18, 2015. In addition, voters will be eligible to win a grand prize trip to Los Angles, California for a taping of Let's Make a Deal or to Atlanta, Georgia for a taping of Family Feud. The block itself featured two episodes of Sale of the Century (Perry), Beat the Clock (1979) and Double Dare. On December 14-25, 2015, the channel aired a special marathon block called a "Betty White Christmas". The block featured various classic game show episodes featuring famous actress and game show personality Betty White. In addition, every day you can enter a special code for a chance to win various goodies from Buzzr. In addition, the special event returned again on December 19, 2016. On February 7, 2016, in conjunction with SuperBowl 50, the network aired a special marathon event called the "Buzzr Bowl" featuring five vintage episodes of Family Feud with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders taking on the Dallas Cowboys football players, Hosted by Richard Dawson from 1980 and the AFC quarterbacks going head-to-head with the NFC quarterbacks, hosted by Ray Combs from 1993. The event returned once again on January 30, 2017 as "Buzzr Bowl II", featuring a 1989 Syndicated episode of Family Feud hosted by Ray Combs featuring the San Francisco 49ers playing against the Cincinnati Bengals along with an episode of Match Game '75 featuring the late Professional Wrestler/Football Player/Actor Alex Karras. On February 14, 2016, in celebration of "Valentine's Day", the network aired a special-themed marathon called "Love is on the Air" (which in turn is a spoof of the hit 1977 song title called "Love is in the Air" sung by John Paul Young). the marathon featured classic episodes of: He Said, She Said, Tattletales, Password, Password Plus and Family Feud. From March 22-April 3, 2016; (due to "March Madness") the channel aired their own tournament called "Buzzr Brackets" where it features sixteen classic game show hosts: Monty Hall, Joe Garagiola, Allen Ludden, Pat Sajak, Richard Dawson, Bob Eubanks, Bob Barker, Jim Perry, Gene Rayburn, Peter Tomarken, Tom Kennedy, Jack Narz, Bill Cullen, Bert Convy, Alex Trebek and Ray Combs. Battling against each other to see who's ("Litteraly") got game. In addition, viewers were also able to download their very own brackets at buzzrplay.com/files/uploads_BUZZR_Bracket as you were allowed to set up your very own picks. *NOTE: Gene Rayburn is the winner of the 2016 Buzzr Brackets tournament. On April 25, 2016; the network hosted a Twitter Q&A session with Bob Eubanks, which is when the 1986-89 version of Card Sharks will begin airing on the network. In addition, viewers would be able to Tweet their questions to Buzzr by using the hashtag "#CARDSHARKSWEEK" from April 18 through April 20, 2016. From May 30-June 1, 2016; in celebration of their first Birthday, the network had their own scratcher game called "The Buzzr Birthday Celebration Scratcher!" where viewers have the opportunity to win daily prizes just by downloading their own digital scratcher cards... ...It returned again 2017. On June 12, 2016; due to the ABC reboot with Anthony Anderson in the summer, the network aired a marathon of classic episodes of To Tell the Truth including five "new-to-Buzzr" vintage episodes along with the original never-before-seen 1956 pilot called Nothing But the Truth hosted by Mike Wallace. Additional Note: The original 1956 pilot of To Tell the Truth (as Nothing But the Truth) was also re-aired as part of their "Lost & Found" week on September 15, 2017. On December 18, 2016; the network aired a mini-marathon of To Tell the Truth in celebration of its 60th Anniversary of the show. From June 20-25, 2016; due to the second season premiere of Celebrity Family Feud with Steve Harvey along with the revival of Match Game with Alec Baldwin as part of ABC's new summer primetime block called "Sunday Fun & Games". The network decided to air a marathon of vintage episodes of All-Star Family Feud with a "TV's All-Time Favorite" episode featuring cast members from: Petticoat Junction, Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch and Your Hit Parade along with a "Hollywood Walk of Fame" episode featuring: Mark Goodson, Dorothy Lamour, Cesar Romero and Betty White along with "new-to-Buzzr" episodes of Match Game '73. On June 25, the network rebroadcast an all-day marathon of both series leading to the upcoming ABC Sunday Night Primetime block. On July 1, 2016; the network continued it's celebration of "The 75th Anniversary of the TV Game Show" by airing an all-day marathon with classic episodes of What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret and To Tell the Truth. Although its not created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman respectively, on July 31, 2016; the network aired "The Michael Larson Press Your Luck Episodes" where an unemployed Ice Cream truck driver from Lebanon, Ohio named Michael Larson went on Press Your Luck and won $110,237 for just two episodes in 1984. NOTE: *Prior to this, the two part episodes have aired on Game Show Network/GSN twice. The first was in the documentary special called Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal (hosted by the late Peter Tomarken) in 2003 and in the countdown special called The 50 Greatest Game Shows of All-Time (hosted by Bil Dwyer) in 2006. On August 25, 2016; in celebration of Monty Hall's 95th birthday, the network started airing four "New-to-Buzzr" episodes of his hit signature creation Let's Make a Deal along with two "New-to-Buzzr" episodes of the short-lived 1979 version of Beat the Clock. On November 6, 2016; in conjunction with the 2016 election (Clinton vs. Trump) the network did a "Salute to Politics" marathon special. This marathon in general featured vintage "politically-themed" episodes of: Family Feud, To Tell the Truth, I've Got a Secret, Press Your Luck and Match Game. On July 9, 2017; the network celebrated America's favorite pastime with Buzzr All-Stars marathon where it consisted Baseball-themed episodes of What's My Line?, Family Feud with Ray Combs and both Match Game '75 and '78 respectively. On October 3-4, 2017; due to his death on September 30, 2017; the network did a mini-marathon tribute to Monty Hall with various classic episodes of his hit signature show Let's Make a Deal along with the short-lived 1979-80 revival of Beat the Clock this is also the first time Buzzr has done a tribute to a legendary game show host. Additionally, the marathon block repeated again on October 7, 2017. On October 20, 2017; the network aired their first documentary special called Game Changers where it reviewed the history of the game show genre and featured interviews of game show personalities including Alex Trebek, Wink Martindale and Drew Carey. Game Shows Goodson-Todman *Beat The Clock *Blockbusters *Body Language *Body Talk (unsold pilot) *Card Sharks *Child's Play *Choose Up Sides *Double Dare *Family Feud (all hosts dating up to John O'Hurley) *Family Feud Challenge (unsold pilot) *He Said, She Said (prototype of Tattletales) *It's News to Me *I've Got a Secret *Make the Connection *The Match Game (pilot episode) *Match Game *Missing Links (pilot episode) *Nothing But the Truth (the original pilot of To Tell the Truth) *Now You See It *On a Roll (unsold pilot) *Password *Password Plus *Play for Keeps! (unsold pilot) *Play Your Hunch *Star Words (unsold pilot) *Super Password *Take Your Choice (unsold pilot) *Tattletales (remake of He Said, She Said) *TKO (unsold pilot) *To Tell The Truth *Trivia Trap *What's My Line? *Winner Take All Hatos-Hall *Let's Make a Deal (from Monty Hall's hosting runs) Reg Grundy *Sale of the Century (Perry) Carruthers Company *Press Your Luck Scotti Bros.-Syd Vinnedge Television *Wordplay Reality Shows *Monster Garage *Monster House *Richard Simmons' Dream Maker Children's Programming *Animal Rescue (E/I) *Dog Tales (E/I) *Stanley on the Go (E/I) Pre-Launch Logo Pre-Launch Sites Buzzr_Let's_Play_Launching_June_1st_More_to_Come.png Buzzr_Let's_Play_A_New_Game_Show_Network_From_FremantleMedia.png Buzzr_Let's_Play_A_New_Network_for_Game_Shows_From_FremnatleMedia.png Flyers CDY7JwfVIAEFNeP.jpg Backstage_Buzzr_Page_1.jpg Backstage_Buzzr_Page_2.jpg Backstage_Buzzr_Page_3.jpg Press Kit buzzr_lunchbox.jpg buzzr_lunchbox_2.jpg buzzr_press_kit.jpg Affiliates As of July 2015, Buzzr has current subchannel affiliation agreements with television stations in 31 media markets encompassing 22 states and the District of Columbia, covering 40% of the media markets in the United States. Fox Television Stations was announced as the network's affiliation group, airing Buzzr on 12 Fox owned and operated stations (including a satellite station of Orlando O&O WOFL, whose sister station WRBW served as that market's affiliate) and five MyNetworkTV owned and operated stations. Buzzr has affiliates in all 10 of the largest and 15 of the 20 largest U.S. television markets (including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston-Manchester and Dallas-Fort-Worth) with an initial reach of 37% of U.S. television homes. In four of the network's launch markets (New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix), Buzzr is affiliated with stations whose subchannel the network occupies were previously affiliated with Bounce TV; as a result of a March 2014 agreement with Univision Communications, Bounce TV moved its affiliations in those markets to Univision-owned stations in late May 2015, shortly before Buzzr launched. Debmar-Mercury (which serves as the current distribution partner for the current syndicated run of the Fremantle-produced Family Feud) was hired by FremantleMedia to handle responsibility for the recruitment of affiliates through agreements with other broadcasting companies. The network hopes to expand its charter affiliate footprint to reach markets covering 50 million U.S. households with at least one television set. List of current affiliates See Also Buzzr - a Youtube channel devoted to revived Fremantle game show properties for the younger crowd since 2014 Game Show Network/GSN - the original TV channel formerly devoted to classic game shows since 1994 Links Official Website Official Facebook page Official Fremantlemedia Website Why I Love Game Shows @ Celebrating 75 Years of the TV Game Show Backstage article about Buzzr Retro Game Shows Find a New Network Home Buzzr Celebrates Independence Day Through the Years with Special 4th of July Television Event Buzzr Sets Programming Block of Failed Game-Show Pilots Buzzr Presents the Evolution of Game Shows and Ourselves Buzzr asks game show fans to program its Sunday night with retro episodes Buzzr reveals its new Sunday retro game show lineup, picked by fans Betty White Christmas 'A Betty White Christmas': Buzzr airing Christmas Day marathon of her game shows 'Match Game?' 'What's My Line?' Buzzr brings 'em back Six Months In, Digitnet Buzzr Ups Its Reach FremantleMedia Sued Over 'Buzzr' Game-Show Network TV Name March Madness Meets Its's Game Show Match on Buzzr BUZZR Teaches Viewers How 'To Tell the Truth' in Special TV Marathon The Land of Parting Gifts: Buzzr Has Failed Us Buzzr Heads North of the Border with Expansion in Canada Exclusively on YES TV BUZZR HEADS NORTH OF THE BORDER WITH EXPANSION IN CANADA EXCLUSIVELY ON YES TV BUZZR at Nosey BUZZR at Amazon Prime Buzzr Casino Links Official site (courtesy of Ludia.com) Mobile Game Show Fun FremantleMedia's Ludia Games in partnership with US based vintage game show channel Buzzr, has released the new mobile game Buzzr Casino Retro-Spieleshow als Spiele-App (Warning: the language is in German) Ludia brings BUZZR's Retro Game Show Fun to Your Phone with the New BUZZR Casino Game Buzzr Casino Trademark logo courtesy of Markify Category:Networks